The FBI maintains a list of individuals that are to be closely monitored and/or detained in the event of a national emergency or war. The index of names, known officially as the “Custodial Detention Program,” is spawned from a list established in 1939 by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (see November 1939). The updated list is composed of persons thought to have a “Communistic, Fascist, Nazi, or other nationalistic background.” The list includes individuals that distribute “literature and propaganda favorable to a foreign power and opposed to the American way of life,” as well as “agitators who are adherents of foreign ideologies.” The names on the list are divided into two categories: those who are to be immediately detained in the event of war and those who are to be subject to close surveillance in the event of war. The program will be criticized for being unreliable and potentially illegal (see 1943). [Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 5/1976, pp. 417]

Brehon B. Somervell. [Source: Public domain]Construction begins on the Pentagon. The structure was conceived at the request of Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell in 1941, in order to provide a temporary solution to the growing US War Department’s critical shortage of space. The groundbreaking ceremony takes place on September 11, 1941. [Fine, 1972, pp. 265-266, 348-351, 431-432, 434; PR Web, 1/16/2018] Exactly 60 years later, Flight 77 will crash into the Pentagon as part of the 9/11 attacks (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Crash by a US Army B-25 bomber on July 28, 1945. [Source: NPR]A B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building in New York City on July 28, 1945, causing 14 deaths. Lieutenant Colonel William Franklin Smith Jr. is piloting a B-25 Mitchell bomber on a routine personnel transport mission from Boston to LaGuardia Airport. Smith asks for clearance to land, but is advised of zero visibility. Proceeding anyway, he is disoriented by the fog, and starts turning right instead of left after passing the Chrysler Building. At 9:40 a.m., the plane crashes into the north side of the Empire State Building, between the 78th and 80th floors, carving an 18-foot hole in the building where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council are located. One engine shoots through the side opposite the impact. It flies as far as the next block where it lands on the roof of a nearby building and starts a fire that destroys a penthouse. The other engine and part of the landing gear plummet down an elevator shaft. The resulting fire is extinguished in 40 minutes. It is the only fire at such a height that is ever successfully controlled. Fourteen people are killed in the incident and one person is injured. Despite the damage and loss of life, the building opens for business on many floors the following Monday. The crash helps spur the passage of the long-pending Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, allowing people to sue the government for the accident. [National Public Radio, 7/28/2008]

President Harry Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, reorganizing the military and overhauling the government’s foreign policy-making bureaucracy. The act gives birth to three major organizations: the Department of Defense (DOD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Council (NSC). The DOD unifies the three branches of the military—the Army, Navy and Air Force—into a single department overseen by a secretary of defense. The act establishes a separate agency, the CIA, to oversee all overt and covert intelligence operations. The act forms the NSC to directly advise the President on all matters of defense and foreign policy. In addition, the act establishes the National Security Resources Board (NSRB) to advise the President “concerning the coordination of military, industrial, and civilian mobilization” in times of war. Should the nation come under attack, the NSRB will be in charge of allocating essential resources and overseeing “the strategic relocation of industries, services, government, and economic activities, the continuous operation of which is essential to the Nation’s security.” [US Congress. House. Senate., 7/26/1947; Trager, 11/1977]

Under the Phoenix Program, the CIA creates and directs a secret police ostensibly run by the South Vietnamese. Its objective is to destroy the Viet Cong’s infrastructure. During the course of the program’s existence, the secret police units, operating as virtual death squads, are implicated in burnings, garroting, rape, torture, and sabotage. As many as 50,000 Vietnamese are killed. [Pilger, 1986, pp. 274; Valentine, 2000Sources:Ralph McGehee, Anthony Herbert] The most decorated American soldier of the war, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert, will later recall in his book, Soldier, “They wanted me to take charge of execution teams that wiped out entire families and tried to make it look as though the VC themselves had done the killing.” [Pilger, 1986, pp. 274]

The US Army releases swarms of specially bred mosquitoes in Georgia and Florida as part of an experiment aimed at determining if disease-bearing insects could be used as carriers of biological weapons. The mosquitoes are of the Aedes Aegypti type, which is a carrier of dengue fever. [Blum, 1995, pp. 344]

Thomas D. White, Air Force chief of staff, tells the National Press Club, “Whoever has the capability to control space will likewise possess the capability to exert control of the surface of earth.” [MSNBC, 4/27/2001]

The NORAD emblem. [Source: NORAD]The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending US airspace, gradually reduces the number of aircraft it has on “alert”—armed and ready for immediate takeoff—in response to the changing nature of the threats it has to defend against, so that there will be just 14 fighter jets on alert across the continental United States when the 9/11 attacks take place. [Jones, 2011, pp. 7-8]NORAD Has 1,200 Interceptor Aircraft in 1960 - NORAD is a bi-national organization, established by the US and Canada in 1958 to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] It is initially responsible for intercepting any Soviet long-range bombers that might attack the Northern Hemisphere. By 1960, it has about 1,200 interceptor aircraft dedicated to this task. But during the 1960s, the Soviets become less reliant on manned bombers, and shift instead to ballistic missiles. In response to this changed threat and also budget constraints, the number of NORAD interceptor aircraft goes down to about 300 by the mid-1970s. NORAD's Mission Changes after Cold War Ends - With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the threats NORAD has to counter change significantly. During the early 1990s, NORAD’s mission consequently changes from one of air defense to one of maintaining “air sovereignty,” which NORAD defines as “providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace.” The new mission includes intercepting suspicious aircraft, tracking hijacked aircraft, assisting aircraft in distress, and counterdrug operations. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 14-15; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ; Jones, 2011, pp. 7] As this change takes place, the number of aircraft defending American airspace is reduced. In 1987, there are 52 fighters on alert in the continental United States. [Filson, 1999, pp. 112-113] But by December 1999, there are just 14 alert fighters remaining around the continental US. [Airman, 12/1999]Number of Alert Sites Goes Down Prior to 9/11 - The number of NORAD “alert sites”—bases where the alert aircraft are located—is also reduced in the decades prior to 9/11. During the Cold War, there are 26 of these sites. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] By 1991, there are 19 of them, according to Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of NORAD’s Continental US Region from 1997 to 2002. [Filson, 2003, pp. v] By 1994, according to a report by the General Accounting Office, there are 14 alert sites around the US. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 1] And by 1996, only 10 alert sites remain. [Utecht, 4/7/1996, pp. 9-10]Military Officials Call for Eliminating Alert Sites - In the 1990s, some officials at the Pentagon argue for the alert sites to be eliminated entirely. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16-17] The Department of Defense’s 1997 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review indicates that the number of alert sites around the continental US could be reduced to just four, but the idea is successfully blocked by NORAD (see May 19, 1997). [Filson, 2003, pp. iv-v, 34-36; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ] However, three alert sites are subsequently removed from the air sovereignty mission. These are in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Burlington, Vermont; and Great Falls, Montana. [American Defender, 4/1998]Seven Alert Sites Remain - By December 1999, therefore, there are just seven alert sites around the continental US, each with two fighters on alert. These sites are Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; Portland Air National Guard Base, Oregon; March Air Reserve Base, California; Ellington Air National Guard Base, Texas; Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts; and Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. Only two of these sites—Otis ANGB and Langley AFB—serve the northeastern United States, where the hijackings on September 11 will take place. [Airman, 12/1999; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]

Fidel Castro leads a force of 9,000 into the Cuban capital of Havana and overthrows the Batista dictatorship, which was being supported by the US at a cost of $16 million in military aid per year. [Perez, 1995; BBC, 12/14/2005]

In Vietnam, the US military uses about 21 million gallons of Agent Orange to defoliate the jungle in order to deny enemy fighters cover. The defoliant—manufactured primarily by Monsanto and Dow Chemical—gets its name from the 55-gallon drums it is shipped in that are marked with an orange stripe. At least 3,181 villages are sprayed with the highly toxic herbicide, which is comprised of a 50:50 mixture of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T and contaminated with dangerous levels of dioxins. Much of the dioxin is TCDD, which is linked to liver and other cancers, diabetes, spina bifida, immune-deficiency diseases, severe diarrhea, persistent malaria, miscarriages, premature births, and severe birth defects. Between 2.1 and 4.8 million Vietnamese are exposed, as are about 20,000 US soldiers. According to Vietnamese estimates, Agent Orange is responsible for the deaths of 400,000 people. Because there is a continued presence of high dioxin levels in the food chain of several sprayed areas, the health effects of Agent Orange persist to the present day. According to studies by Arnold Schecter of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas, some Vietnamese have dioxin levels 135 times higher than people living in unsprayed areas. Schecter has called Vietnam “the largest contamination of dioxin in the world.” The Vietnamese believe the herbicide has contributed to birth defects in 500,000 children, many of them second and third generation. Though the US government has accepted responsibility for the health complications in US soldiers that resulted from exposure to Agent Orange (providing up to $1,989 per month for affected vets and more than $5,000 per month for those severely disabled and homebound), the US has refused to compensate Vietnamese victims. To date, no US agency, including the US Agency for International Development, has conducted any program in Vietnam to address the issue of Agent Orange. When asked by Mother Jones magazine in 1999 if the Vietnam government has raised the issue in private talks with the United States, a State Department official responds: “Ohhhh, yes. They have. But for us there is real concern that if we start down the road of research, what does that portend for liability-type issues further on?” [BBC, 11/19/1999; Mother Jones, 1/2000; BBC, 11/15/2000; BBC, 12/30/2001; Associated Press, 4/17/2003]

The US government sprays florescent particles of zinc cadmium sulfide over Stillwater, Oklahoma, but reportedly does not monitor how the application affects the population. Leonard Cole, an expert on the Army’s development of biological weapons, later explains to an Oklahoma TV news program: “Cadmium itself is known to be one of the most highly toxic materials in small amounts that a human can be exposed to If there were concentrations of it enough to make one sick, you could have serious consequences a person over a period of time could have illnesses that could range from cancer to organ failures.” [KFOR 4 (Oklahoma City), 4/25/2003]

During the Vietnam war, the US uses a total of 373,000 tons of napalm. [St. Petersburg Times, 12/3/2000; Boston Globe, 5/1/2001] One ton of napalm alone is enough to burn a football field in seconds. [BBC, 4/24/2001] The use of napalm in Vietnam is widespread and is a favorite weapon of the US military command. General Paul Harkins says it “really puts the fear of God into the Vietcong—and that is what counts.” [Hilsman, 1967] Pilots are given authority to use the weapon without prior authorization if the original target is inaccessible. [Herring, 1986, pp. 10] Entire villages are destroyed by napalm bombs. [Deans, n.d.]

South Vietnamese gun boats attack the North Vietnamese island of Hon Me as part of operation OPLAN 34A. Daniel Ellsberg, a Pentagon official working under US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, will later describe 34A as a “100 percent US operations, utilizing some South Vietnamese personnel along with… foreign mercenary crews, totally planned and controlled by the US, through MACV [Military Assistance Command Vietnam], CIA and CINCPAC [Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet]; some people in the GVN [Government of (South) Vietnam] had very limited knowledge of the operations, but no hand in planning or managing them.” [Ellsberg, 2003Sources:Daniel Ellsberg]

The USS Maddox is gathering intelligence off the coast of North Vietnam. [Pilger, 1986, pp. 148; Herring, 1986, pp. 119; Media Beat, 7/27/1994] When a group of North Vietnamese torpedo boats come within range of the vessel there is a brief, but tense, exchange of fire. The USS Maddox fires on the boats, which respond with torpedoes. The torpedo boats are quickly driven away when aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga come to the assistance of the Maddox. The US government and the press will report that the torpedo boats had launched an “unprovoked attack” against the Maddox while it was on a “routine patrol.” [Herring, 1986, pp. 119; Media Beat, 7/27/1994] When reports of the incident are received in Washington, the Maddox is ordered to continue is operations close to North Vietnamese shores. Another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, is sent to support it. [Herring, 1986, pp. 120]

Two days after an engagement with North Vietnamese torpedo boats (see August 2, 1964), Captain John J. Herrick of the USS Maddox sees two “mysterious dots” on his radar screen. He determines they are torpedo boats and sends an emergency cable to headquarters in Honolulu reporting that the ship is under attack. Honolulu quickly passes the report on to Washington. [Pilger, 1986, pp. 195] President Johnson meets with his advisers and decides that the US must respond. “We cannot sit still as a nation and let them attack us on the high seas and get away with it,” Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara says. [Herring, 1986, pp. 121] A few hours later, a cable arrives from Captain Herrick, which reads: “Freak weather effects on radar and over eager sonar men . . . No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken.” A little later, Herrick cables that though it was “a confusing picture,” he did believe that there had been an attack. [In 1985, Herrick will reveal that this judgment had been based on “intercepted North Vietnamese communications” which he had not seen.] Half an hour later, the White House receives a third cable from Herrick, in which the captain says he is now uncertain what had happened. But this last report is ignored and President Johnson announces in a televised address, “Renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.” Meanwhile, US forces in Vietnam launch “retaliatory” air strikes against five North Vietnamese patrol boats and the oil facilities at Vinh. [Pilger, 1986, pp. 196; Herring, 1986, pp. 121; Ellsberg, 2003] The American media praises the president’s speech and actions. The New York Times states the following day that Johnson had gone to “the American people… with the somber facts.” And the Los Angeles Times urges its readers to “face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities.” But time will reveal that there had been no attacks. US Navy squadron commander James Stockdale, who had been in the air at the time of the alleged attacks, will later recall: “I had the best seat in the house to watch that event and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there… There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.” [Media Beat, 7/27/1994]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Relations Committee hold closed hearings on the Gulf of Tonkin torpedo attacks (see August 2, 1964)
(see August 4, 1964). Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, who had received a tip from an unnamed Pentagon insider (not Daniel Ellsberg), asks US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara if the torpedo attacks might have been a response to operation OPLAN 34A which had conducted attacks on the North Vietnamese island of Hon Me on July 31 (see July 31, 1964). The Senator raises the possibility that the North Vietnamese may have thought the ship was supporting OPLAN 34A’s attacks. Morse suggests that McNamara should inquire as to the exact location of the Maddox on those days and what its true mission was. McNamara responds: “First, our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, was not aware of, any South Vietnamese actions, if there were any…. The Maddox was operating in international waters, was carrying out a routine patrol of the type we carry out all over the world at all times. I did not have knowledge at the time of the attack on the island. There is no connection between this patrol and any action of South Vietnam.” [New York Times, 6/13/1971; Herring, 1986, pp. 122; Ellsberg, 2003]

In response to alleged “unprovoked” attacks by North Vietnamese torpedo boats against the USS Maddox on August 2 (see August 2, 1964) and August 4 (see August 4, 1964), Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” [US Congress, 8/7/1964; Herring, 1986, pp. 122-123] It sails though the House unanimously and in the Senate it meets only the slightest resistance with two dissenting votes. [Herring, 1986, pp. 122-123] When Daniel Ellsberg leaks the Pentagon Papers seven years later, it is revealed that the resolution had been drafted 2 months earlier, well before the alleged incident. [Pilger, 1986, pp. 196]

As part of Project 112, the US military sprays a biological agent on barracks in Oahu, Hawaii. The agent is believed to be harmless but later shown to infect those with damaged immune systems. The program is coordinated by the Desert Test Center, part of a “biological and chemical weapons complex” in the Utah desert. [Associated Press, 10/8/2002; Associated Press, 10/9/2002] Civilians may have been exposed to the gases. [Reuters, 10/10/2002]

As part of Project 112, the US military performs a series of tests at the Gerstle River test site near Fort Greeley, Alaska, involving artillery shells and bombs filled with sarin and VX, both of which are lethal nerve agents. The program is coordinated by the Desert Test Center, part of a “biological and chemical weapons complex,” in the Utah desert. [Associated Press, 10/8/2002; Associated Press, 10/9/2002] Civilians may have been exposed to the gases. [Reuters, 10/10/2002] The US military later claims the experiments were conducted “out of concern for [the United States’] ability to protect and defend against these potential threats.” [US Department of Defense, 10/9/2002; Reuters, 10/10/2002]

One day after the alleged “unprovoked” attacks on the USS Maddox by North Vietnamese torpedo boats (see August 2, 1964), the vessel’s captain, John J. Herrick, reports to Washington: “Evaluation of info from various sources indicates DRV considers [my] patrol directly involved with 34-A ops (see July 31, 1964) DRV considers US ships present as enemies because of these ops and have already indicated their readiness to treat us in that category.” [Ellsberg, 2003]

A small group of Indonesian junior military officers loyal to left-wing nationalist President Ahmed Sukarno kidnaps and kills six senior army generals and announces the creation of a revolutionary council to rule the country. The officers, led by one of Sukarno’s bodyguards, Colonel Untung, claim the killings were necessary to thwart an imminent, CIA-backed coup against the Sukarno government. This event is known as the “September 30 Affair.” [Pacific Affairs, 1985; States News Service, 5/19/1990; Sydney Morning Herald, 7/10/1999] Interestingly, Indonesian General Suharto, who will take control of Jakarta the following day (see October 1, 1965), had foreknowledge of the attacks but did nothing to stop them. [Sydney Morning Herald, 7/9/1999Sources:Abdul Latief] Prior to this event, tension between Indonesia and the West were on the rise. Sukarno had earlier threatened to nationalize US oil assets. [Sydney Morning Herald, 7/10/1999]

Science magazine reports that at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the United States’ offensive biological program is headquartered, dengue fever is among those diseases that are “objects of considerable research and that appear to be among those regarded as potential BW [biological warfare] agents.” [Blum, 1995] The biological warfare program is overseen by the US Army’s Chemical Warfare Service. [US Department of the Army, 2/26/2004]

Che Guevara, having gone to Bolivia in the hopes of starting a revolution to overthrow the military government, is captured and executed by Bolivian soldiers trained, equipped and guided by US Green Beret and CIA operatives. [Kornbluh, n.d.]

The US military tests the “effectiveness of artillery shells using sarin in the jungle.” The tests, code-named “Red Oak, Phase 1,” are conducted in the Upper Waiakae Forest Reserve on Hawaii and near Fort Sherman in the Panama Canal Zone. According to reports released in late October 2002, there was “no indication of harm to troops or civilians.” [Reuters, 11/1/2002]

In the wake of anti-war demonstrations and urban rioting in several US cities, the Pentagon establishes a set of civil disturbance plans designed to put down political protests and civil unrest. Conducted under the codename Operation Garden Plot, the new program significantly increases the role of the military in training for and intervening in social uprisings. The Pentagon develops contingency plans for every city considered to have potential for uprisings by students, minorities, or labor unions. Each area of the country follows a subplan of Operation Garden Plot. Operation Cable Splicer, for instance, covers the states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona (see May 1968, February 10, 1969, March 1969, and May 1970). Each region will conduct exercises and war games to practice and develop its individual plans. To oversee the operations, the Pentagon establishes the Directorate of Civil Disturbance and Planning Operations. The directorate will operate from the basement of the Pentagon in what becomes known as the “domestic war room” (see April 1968). [New Times, 11/28/1975; Salon, 3/15/2002; U.S Army, 8/18/2009]

The US government sprays bacillus globigii from a submarine “over part of Oahu, Hawaii, and over several boats off the coast, to gauge how Venezuelan equine encephalitis would be carried by wind.” The project is called, “Folded Arrow.” [Associated Press, 7/1/2003]

The US government sprays two types of bacteria, one of which is E. coli, on a Hawaiian rainforest hoping to determine how long the bacteria will remain on the vegetation. The project is known as “Blue Tango.” [Associated Press, 7/1/2003]

The government establishes the Directorate of Civil Disturbance and Planning Operations within the Department of Defense. The directorate will oversee civil disturbance operations, such as Garden Plot and Cable Splicer (see Winter 1967-1968), and conduct surveillance on US citizens in search of possible security threats. The directorate is headquartered in the basement of the Pentagon in what will become known as the “domestic war room.” The center utilizes a massive computer system to monitor “all public outbursts and political dissent” within the United States. New Times magazine will describe the war room as follows: “Surrounded by acetate map overlays, a fulltime staff of 180, including around-the-clock ‘watch teams,’ [uses] teletype machines, telephones, and radios to keep in constant communication with every National Guard headquarters and all major military installations in the continental United States.” Seven Army infantry brigades totaling 21,000 troops are at the directorate’s disposal. [New Times, 11/28/1975]

During the administration of US President Richard Nixon, and under the counsel of his advisor for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger, the United States drops more than two million tons of bombs on Laos during more than 500,000 bombing missions—exceeding what it had dropped on Germany and Japan during all of World War II—in an effort to defeat the left-leaning Pathet Lao and to destroy North Vietnamese supply lines. The ordnance includes some 90 million cluster bombs, 20-30 percent of which do not detonate (see After 1973). A Senate report finds: “The United States has undertaken a large-scale air war over Laos to destroy the physical and social infrastructure of Pathet Lao held areas and to interdict North Vietnamese infiltration… throughout all this there has been a policy of subterfuge and secrecy… through such things as saturation bombing and the forced evacuation of population from enemy held or threatened areas—we have helped to create untold agony for hundreds of thousands of villagers.” And in 1970, Far Eastern Economic Review reports: “For the past two years the US has carried out one of the most sustained bombing campaigns in history against essentially civilian targets in northeastern Laos…. Operating from Thai bases and from aircraft carriers, American jets have destroyed the great majority of villages and towns in the northeast. Severe casualties have been inflicted upon the inhabitants… Refugees from the Plain of Jars report they were bombed almost daily by American jets last year. They say they spent most of the past two years living in caves or holes.” [Blum, 1995; BBC, 1/5/2001; Stars and Stripes, 7/21/2002; BBC, 12/6/2005] Meo villagers who attempt neutrality or refuse to send their 13-year-olds to fight in the CIA’s army, are refused American-supplied rice and “ultimately bombed by the US Air Force.” [Blum, 1995] The CIA also drops millions of dollars in forged Pathet Lao currency in an attempt to destabilize the Lao economy. [Blum, 1995] During this period, the existence of US operations in Laos is outright denied. [Blum, 1995; Stars and Stripes, 7/21/2002]

Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s assistant for National Security Affairs, convinces the president to begin a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia where Viet Cong and North Vietnamese have established logistical bases. The campaign, secretly referred to as “Operation Breakfast,” spurs the Vietnamese to move deeper into Cambodia causing US bombings to move further into the country’s interior. As in Laos (see 1969-1973), the US drops an incredible number of bombs on civilian areas. [Los Angeles Times, 7/8/1997] Craig Etcheson will later write in his book, The Rise and Demise of Democratic Kampuchea: “The fact is that the United States dropped three times the quantity of explosives on Cambodia between 1970 and 1973 than it had dropped on Japan for the duration of World War II. Between 1969 and 1973, 539,129 tons of high explosives rained down on Cambodia; that is more than one billion pounds. This is equivalent to some 15,400 pounds of explosives for every square mile of Cambodian territory. Considering that probably less than 25 percent of the total area of Cambodia was bombed at one time or another, the actual explosive force per area would be at least four times this level.” [Etcheson, 1984, pp. 99]

A large exercise, codenamed Cable Splicer II, is conducted in California to test and develop the ability of local, state, and federal officials to deal with political protests and urban rioting. Operation Cable Splicer is a regional subplan of the Pentagon’s Operation Garden Plot (see Winter 1967-1968). A month earlier, Governor Ronald Reagan and other officials ceremoniously kicked off the war game (see February 10, 1969). The exercise, which simulates a variety of civil disturbances, is spread across 23 political jurisdictions and includes National Guard officers, Army advisers, senior police and sheriff officers, and private executives. According to New Times magazine, “over 1,200 preplanned intelligence reports on supposedly imaginary events, people, and organizations” are pasted on index cards and handed to the participants to help “generate the make-believe war.” The magazine will later report: “The players listen to a special intelligence summary, learning the background of the civil disturbance that has led to the current ‘emergency.’ At that point, the ‘controllers’—usually senior National Guard officers and their Army advisers—begin play, feeding the IBM-card preplanned intelligence reports of dissident activity to the players. Seated at rows of desks dotted with telephones, facing a ‘situation map’ of their community, the players respond to the unfolding scenario.” Storyline - In the first phase of the exercise, an arrest and shooting “provoke crowd unrest and threats against public officials.” Fourteen simulated hours later, rioters attack a police car and injure an officer. A member of a minority group is killed and two others are wounded. There are threats of retaliation against police officers. Mock intelligence reports suggest widespread rioting is likely, as dozens of apparent radicals are flown in on a “chartered flight” and picked up at the airport by 20 separate vehicles. The second phase of the exercise begins with “the ambush of several police cars, the attempted assassination of the mayor, the bombing of local armories, the destruction of vehicles and ammunition stocks, and the gathering of thousands of people in the streets.” The exercise participants call in police from outside jurisdictions and cities, but they are unsuccessful at quelling the violence. In the third phase of the exercise, according to New Times, “intelligence reports pouring into the Emergency Operations Center disclose more fire bombings, attempted assassinations of public officials, hoarding of water in certain areas, and sniping of fire trucks. The streets remain filled with thousands of people, and the National Guard is called to active duty.” As the crowd turns increasingly violent, the Army is called upon to take over for the National Guard. The crowd is finally dispersed, although the details of exactly how are unknown. “At their disposal,” New Times reports, “there are heavy artillery, armor, chemical and psychological warfare teams, and tactical air support.” The third phase concludes with a few “loose militants” unable to gain popular influence. [New Times, 11/28/1975]

While Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk is on a trip abroad, his top ministers, Lon Nol and Sirik Matak, with CIA backing, usurp control of the country and immediately begin cooperating with the United States military to expel the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong presence in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, and supported by a population terrorized by the US bombing campaign, will wage guerrilla warfare against the new government, overthrowing it in 1975 (see April 17, 1975). [Blum, 1995; Los Angeles Times, 7/8/1997]

US and South Vietnamese troops invade Cambodia, attacking North Vietnamese and Viet Cong bases and supply lines. Angered by the move, four men from Henry Kissinger’s National Security Council staff resign (see April 24-30, 1970). [Blum, 1995; Hitchins, 2001; Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., 2005] By the end of May, scores of villages have been destroyed. [Blum, 1995] Though US ground forces are withdrawn by June 30, the South Vietnamese troops will remain, occupying heavily populated areas and supported by continued heavy US air bombings. During this time, popular support for the Khmer Rouge broadens, its ranks swelling from 3,000 in March 1970 to a peak of about 30,000. [Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., 2005]

Participants in a California civil disturbance exercise, codenamed Cable Splicer III, hold an “After Action Conference” to discuss the results. The exercise was designed to pracitce Operation Cable Splicer, a regional subplan of the Pentagon’s Operation Garden Plot (see Winter 1967-1968). The participants, which include Army officials, local police officers, and private executives, spend much of the conference pronouncing their disgust for leftists and other activists. According to New Times magazine, speakers at the conference condemn “university administrators who demur at giving the police free rein on the campuses; parents of ‘would-be revolutionaries’ who support their children; and legislators who investigate police actions.” Political demonstrators are referred to as “guerrillas,” “modern day barbarians,” “Brown Shirts,” “kooks,” and “VC.” Los Angeles Police Department Inspector John A. McAllister gives a lecture listing activities that “require police action,” including “loud, boisterous, or obscene” behavior on beaches, “love-in type gatherings in parks where in large numbers they freak out,” disruptions by “noisy and sometimes violent dissidents,” peace marches and rock festivals where “violence is commonplace and sex is unrestrained,” and “campus disruptions—which in fact are nothing more than mini-revolutions.” [New Times, 11/28/1975]

In Laos, a 16-member US Special Forces “Studies and Observations Group” (SOG) and about 140 Montagnard tribesmen are dropped sixty miles from the South Vietnamese border and several miles away from its targeted village. They are told that the objective of the mission, code-named “Operation Tailwind,” is to eliminate a village where VietCong, Russians, and American defectors are believed to be moving freely. The troops are instructed to kill anyone they encounter, combatant or otherwise, including American defectors who pose a special threat to the US because of the sensitive knowledge they possess. [ [Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Thomas Moorer, Jay Graves, Jim Cathey, Mike Hagen, Unnamed SOG Recon team commando [1]] Another possible objective of the mission is to divert enemy attention from Operation Gauntlet, an offensive operation to regain control of territory in Laos. [US Department of Defense, 7/30/1998] The SOG and Montagnards are all equipped with M-17 gas masks for the mission. [ [Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Craig Schmidt, Unnamed SOG Recon team commando [2]] For three days, the team fights its way to the targeted village. On the third night, they camp on the outskirts of the village while it is “prepped” by Air Force A-1s. The next morning, the unit raids the village. The battle ends quickly, in about 10 minutes, because of the previous night’s bombing and because most of the people are not combat personnel, but belong to a transportation unit. [ [Sources:Mike Hagen] When they enter the village, they find more than one hundred bodies. Some are combatants, but many are also women and children. [CNN, 7/2/1999Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Eugene McCarley, Mike Hagen, Jimmy Lucas] One member of the SOG sees Montagnard soldiers shove grenades down the throats of women and at least three children. [ [Sources:Robert Van Buskirk] The soldiers report seeing between 10 and 20 Caucasians among the dead and speculate that they were American defectors, though the Pentagon insists they were Russians. Platoon leader Robert Van Buskirk later tells CNN that he killed two American defectors during the attack when he dropped a white phosphorus grenade into a tunnel where the two had fled. [ [Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Mike Hagen, Jim Cathey] Rescue helicopters are then called in and the troops head to a rice paddy and put on their gas masks. As the helicopters prepares to land, it drops gas canisters (CBU-14), probably sarin nerve gas, to incapacitate a swarm of enemy fighters who are coming down a hill towards the landing zone. The enemy fighters immediately drop and go into convulsions when the gas is deployed. [ [Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Mike Hagen, Craig Schmidt, Mike Sheperd, John Snipes, Unnamed pilot [1], Unnamed pilot [2], Unnamed pilot [3], Unnamed pilot [4], Unnamed SOG Recon team commando [2]] As the rescue choppers are taking off, SOG members and Montagnards are vomiting and have mucous running uncontrollably from their noses. [CNN, 6/7/1998; CNN, 6/14/1998; Time, 6/15/1998; Oliver and Smith, 1999; CNN, 7/2/1999Sources:Robert Van Buskirk, Mike Hagen, Mike Sheperd, John Snipes, Unnamed pilot [1], Unnamed pilot [2], Unnamed pilot [3], Unnamed pilot [4], Unnamed SOG Recon team commando [2]]

The Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, chaired by Senator Sam Ervin, uncovers the existence of a sophisticated computer system used by the Department of Defense to monitor US citizens suspected of “subversive” activities. The system is operated from the military’s “domestic war room,” overseen by the Directorate of Civil Disturbance and Planning Operations in the basement of the Pentagon (see April 1968). It is designed to keep track of “all public outbursts and political dissent” inside the United States. The Senate subcommittee uncovers a database of thousands of US citizens labeled as possible threats to national security. According to New Times magazine, the subcommittee discovers “computerized files on 18,000 of the celebrated to obscure, on people such as Senator George McGovern and former Massachusetts Gov. Francis Sargent down to ordinary citizens who had, sometimes unknowingly, become ‘associated with known militant groups.’” [New Times, 11/28/1975]

Months after the Paris Agreement, which marked the official end of the Vietnam War, the United States, under the leadership of President Richard Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger, steps up its bombing of Cambodia—contradicting earlier claims that the rationale for bombing Cambodia had been to protect American lives in Vietnam. During the months of March, April and May, the tonnage of bombs dropped on Cambodia is more than twice that of the entire previous year. The bombing stops in August under pressure from Congress. The total number of civilians killed since the bombing began in 1969 is estimated to be 600,000 (see March 1969). [Guardian, 4/25/2002; Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., 2005]

US military officials tell Congress that the US needs to develop naval support facilities on the island of Diego Garcia. The Pentagon wants to lengthen the runway at Diego Garcia from 8,000 to 12,000 feet, increase the available petroleum, oils, and lubricants storage, and dredge its harbor. It would also like to build additional barracks, a pier to facilitate cargo handling, as well as additional utility and recreational facilities. The officials argue that expanding the base at Diego Garcia is needed to safeguard US oil interests in the Persian Gulf and to counter the Soviet Union’s presence in the region, which the military claims is increasing rapidly. They attempt to allay Congress’ concerns that expanding the base would provoke competition in that region with the Soviet Union. At one point during the hearing, George Vest, Director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs of the Department of State, says the island is “uninhabited,” making no reference to the fact that it had been made so by the US and British only a few years before (see July 27, 1971-May 26, 1973). When further questioned on the subject, Vest repeats that there are “no inhabitants” at all on the island. [US Congress, 6/5/1975; Los Angeles Times, 11/4/2000]

US Congress passes a bill allowing the Department of Defense to upgrade the communications facility at Diego Garcia to a “naval support” base. The US will lengthen the island’s runway from 8,000 to 12,000 feet, increase the available petroleum, oils, and lubricants storage, and dredge its harbor, among other improvements. [Sunday Times (London), 9/21/1975]

President Carter’s secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, says in an official US policy statement: “The United States will not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty or any comparable internationally binding commitment not to acquire nuclear explosive devices, except in the case of an attack on the United States, its territories or armed forces, or its allies, by such a state allied to a nuclear-weapon state, or associated with a nuclear-weapon state in carrying out or sustaining the attack.” [Graham and LaVera, 2003]

Responding to repeated armed incursions by Cambodian forces into its border villages, Soviet-allied Vietnam forms the Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation (KNUFNS) made up of communist and noncommunist Cambodian exiles. The KNUFNS invades Cambodia in 1979 and seizes the capital city of Phnom Penh, forcing the Khmer Rouge to flee to the jungles along the Thai border. Heng Samrin becomes Cambodia’s new president. [Library of Congress, 1990; Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., 2005]

Fearing a diplomatic incident, CIA and other US agents rarely venture into Afghanistan. Generally speaking, soldiers from the British elite Special Air Service (SAS) work with and train the mujaheddin instead. The SAS provides weapons training in Afghanistan until 1982 when Russian soldiers find the passports of two British instructors in a training camp. After that, mujaheddin are trained in secret camps in remote parts of Scotland. When the US decides to supply Stinger missiles to the mujaheddin in 1986, it is the SAS who provide the training in how to use them (see September 1986). But the SAS is taking orders from the CIA. The CIA also indirectly gives weapons to Osama bin Laden and other mujaheddin leaders. One former US intelligence official will say in 1999, “[US agents] armed [bin Laden’s] men by letting him pay rock-bottom prices for basic weapons.” But this person notes the relationship will later prove to be embarrassing to bin Laden and the CIA. “Of course it’s not something they want to talk about.” [Reeve, 1999, pp. 168]

In Geneva, Protocol III (Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons is adopted on October 10, 1980, making it illegal to use incendiary weapons on civilian populations and restricting the use of these weapons against military targets that are located within a concentration of civilians. Such weapons are considered “to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects.” 51 countries initially sign the document and on December 2, 1983, its provisions are entered into force. By the end of 2004, 104 countries sign and 97 ratify the protocol. [Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol III, 10/10/1980; United Nations, 11/19/2004] The US is not a party to this protocol and continues to use incendiary weapons in all its major conflicts. It is the only country to do so. [Independent, 8/10/2003]

Zvi Rafiah leaves his post in Washington and takes a job with Israel’s largest defense company, Israeli Military Industries (IMI). IMI is said to have the second largest payroll in Israel and to be “inextricably entwined with the military and security apparatus of the Jewish state.” [Crile, 2003, pp. 99, 141] An FBI investigation identified Rafiah as a likely Mossad agent and Stephen Bryen, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and a close associate of Richard Perle, was regularly passing classified material to him (see March 1978).

US Army intelligence manuals provided to Latin American military officers attending the US Army’s “School of the Americas” advocate executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents and sanctions the use of “fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum” to recruit and control informants. [Washington Post, 9/21/1996]

Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense, writes a memorandum to the secretary of the army recommending that mortars manufactured by the Israeli arms company, Soltam, be evaluated for cost competitiveness. Less than a year before, Perle received $50,000 from the company (see March 1978). Perle also complains in the memo that the company had not been given a fair shot at an earlier Pentagon contract. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

General Prosper Avril, a former leader of Duvaliers’ Presidential Guard, seizes control of Haiti. During his rule, he suspends 27 articles of the constitution, declares a state of siege, and is responsible for numerous human rights abuses. A US District Court will later award $41 million in compensation to six Haitians who were tortured under his regime including opposition politicians, union leaders, scholars, and “even a doctor trying to practice community medicine.” The US will help Avril evade arrest in December 2003 (see December 2003). [Miami Herald, 5/31/2001; London Review of Books, 4/15/2004]

Captain Tom Herring, an F-15 pilot with the Florida Air National Guard. [Source: Airman]Fighter jets are regularly scrambled by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in response to suspicious or unidentified aircraft flying in US airspace in the years preceding 9/11. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 4; Associated Press, 8/14/2002] For this task, NORAD keeps a pair of fighters on “alert” at a number of sites around the US. These fighters are armed, fueled, and ready to take off within minutes of receiving a scramble order (see Before September 11, 2001). [American Defender, 4/1998; Air Force Magazine, 2/2002; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003; Grant, 2004, pp. 14] Various accounts offer statistics about the number of times fighters are scrambled: A General Accounting Office report published in May 1994 states that “during the past four years, NORAD’s alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times, or an average of 15 times per site per year.” Of these incidents, the number of scrambles that are in response to suspected drug smuggling aircraft averages “one per site, or less than 7 percent of all of the alert sites’ total activity.” The remaining activity, about 93 percent of the total scrambles, “generally involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress.” [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 4] In the two years from May 15, 1996 to May 14, 1998, NORAD’s Western Air Defense Sector (WADS), which is responsible for the “air sovereignty” of the western 63 percent of the continental US, scrambles fighters 129 times to identify unknown aircraft that might be a threat. Over the same period, WADS scrambles fighters an additional 42 times against potential and actual drug smugglers. [Washington National Guard, 1998] In 1997, the Southeast Air Defense Sector (SEADS)—another of NORAD’s three air defense sectors in the continental US—tracks 427 unidentified aircraft, and fighters intercept these “unknowns” 36 times. The same year, NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) handles 65 unidentified tracks and WADS handles 104 unidentified tracks, according to Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region on 9/11. [American Defender, 4/1998] In 1998, SEADS logs more than 400 fighter scrambles. [Grant, 2004, pp. 14] In 1999, Airman magazine reports that NORAD’s fighters on alert at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida are scrambled 75 times per year, on average. According to Captain Tom Herring, a full-time alert pilot at the base, this is more scrambles than any other unit in the Air National Guard. [Airman, 12/1999] General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD on 9/11, will later state that in the year 2000, NORAD’s fighters fly 147 sorties. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ] According to the Calgary Herald, in 2000 there are 425 “unknowns,” where an aircraft’s pilot has not filed or has deviated from a flight plan, or has used the wrong radio frequency, and fighters are scrambled 129 times in response. [Calgary Herald, 10/13/2001] Between September 2000 and June 2001, fighters are scrambled 67 times to intercept suspicious aircraft, according to the Associated Press. [Associated Press, 8/14/2002]Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region at the time of the 9/11 attacks, will say that before 9/11, it is “not unusual, and certainly was a well-refined procedure” for NORAD fighters to intercept an aircraft. He will add, though, that intercepting a commercial airliner is “not normal.” [Air Force Magazine, 9/2011 ] On September 11, 2001, NEADS scrambles fighters that are kept on alert in response to the hijackings (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 9:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20, 26-27]

To save money, US Army officials order just 50 percent of the ALQ-156 flare-launching systems needed for the Illinois-Iowa National Guard fleet of Chinook helicopters. The flare-launching systems allow helicopters to evade heat-seeking missiles. “A conscious decision was made not to buy as many as we need,” Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, later explains to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s a decision that has some level of risk with it.” [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12/27/2003]

Thousands of Timorese attend the funeral of Sebastian Gomez, a Timorese youth, who was shot dead in the Catholic church of San Antonio de Motael by East Timorese agents under the direction of the Indonesian government the month before. When the funeral procession arrives at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, the US-trained elite Kopassus military unit appears and immediately opens fire on the crowd with its American-made M-16s. The massacre is caught on film and broadcast worldwide on television by Max Stahl. [John Pilger, 1994; Observer, 9/19/1999; Inter Press Service, 7/8/2004] Witnessing the massacre are two American journalists, Amy Goodman of WBAI / Pacifica radio and Allan Nairn, a reporter for New Yorker magazine. Nairn will later recount in his February 27, 1992 testimony to Congress: “[A]s we stood there watching as the soldiers marched into our face, the inconceivable thing began to happen. The soldiers rounded the corner, never breaking stride, raised their rifles and fired in unison into the crowd. Timorese were backpedaling, gasping, trying to flee, but in seconds they were cut down by the hail of fire. People fell, stunned and shivering, bleeding in the road, and the Indonesian soldiers kept on shooting. I saw the soldiers aiming and shooting people in the back, leaping bodies to hunt down those who were still standing. They executed schoolgirls, young men, old Timorese, the street was wet with blood and the bodies were everywhere.” [US Congress, 2/27/1992Sources:Allan Nairn, Amy Goodman] In 1992, an investigation performed by the Portuguese solidarity group, A Paz e Possivel em Timor-Leste, will report the casualties: 271 killed, 278 Wounded, 103 Hospitalized, and 270 “disappeared.” [East Timor Action Network, 1/3/2006] After the massacre, the US will continue to provide aid to the Indonesian military under a covert program codenamed “Iron Balance.” The training is in military expertise that can “only be used internally against civilians, such as urban guerrilla warfare, surveillance, counter-intelligence, sniper marksmanship and ‘psychological operations.’” [Observer, 9/19/1999Sources: Pentagon documents]

The Department of Defense updates its civil disturbance response plan, codenamed Operation Garden Plot. The program was originally established in the 1960s (see Winter 1967-1968). The Pentagon utilizes lessons learned from the recent deployment of Marines and Army infantry troops in Los Angeles (see May 1-May 6, 1992). Marines called into Los Angeles had not been trained for domestic disturbances. An Army official reportedly says the military will now “provide standard riot duty training for all combat forces that could be called into the nation’s cities.” National Guard troops will also get “refresher training on riot control as part of their regular weekend training and two weeks of active duty.” [San Antonio Express-News, 5/17/1992]

Miroslav Kalousek is appointed deputy minister of defense for economics in the Czech Republic. [Novinky(.cz), 6/9/2009; Novinky(.cz), 2010] He will be responsible for the department’s budget, restructuring the army, and administering procurement. Kalousek is appointed by the current minister of defence, Antonin Baudys, but will remain in his position long after Baudys departs, finally exiting the department in 1998. [Novinky(.cz), 2010]

Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommends that the number of aircraft dedicated to defending US airspace be reduced, a recommendation echoed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) over a year later. The continental air defense mission, carried out by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was developed during the Cold War to protect against any Soviet bombers that might try to attack the US via the North Pole. In 1960, NORAD had about 1,200 fighter jets dedicated to this task, but now its US portion comprises 180 Air National Guard fighters, located in 10 units and 14 alert sites around the US. In February 1993, Powell issues a report in which he suggests that, due to the former Soviet Union no longer posing a significant threat, the air defense mission could be transferred to existing general-purpose combat and training forces. In May 1994, the GAO issues a report agreeing with Powell, saying that a “dedicated continental air defense force is no longer needed.” The report also says: “NORAD plans to reduce the number of alert sites in the continental United States to 14 and provide 28 aircraft for the day-to-day peacetime air sovereignty mission. Each alert site will have two fighters, and their crews will be on 24-hour duty and ready to scramble within five minutes.” [US Department of Defense, 2/12/1993; General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994] NORAD will play a key role in responding to the hijackings on 9/11. By then, it will have just 14 fighters available around the US on “alert”—on the runway, fueled, and ready to take off within minutes of being ordered into the air. [Code One Magazine, 1/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]

The United Nations names the army officers who committed the worst atrocities of the civil war in El Salvador. Forty-five of the over 60 officers identified in the report, or nearly two-thirds, had been trained at the US Army’s “School of the Americas” located at Fort Benning, Georgia. [UN Security Council, 3/15/1993; Guardian, 10/30/2001; Kloby, 2003, pp. 272]

Nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan calls Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to get her approval for a takeover by Khan of a factory in Karachi. The factory, the People’s Steel Mill, had been closed down due to poor management and corruption. Bhutto will say she is surprised that Khan calls her at all: “Frankly, I was shocked. I had got used to not hearing from him.” According to Bhutto, “He said he could do something really hi-tech there that would aid all aspects of life but particularly his program at KRL [Khan Research Laboratories].” Bhutto agrees and the plant soon becomes a key component in Khan’s nuclear program. At the same time, Bhutto also agrees to go to North Korea to facilitate co-operation between the two countries’ nuclear programs (see December 29, 1993 and Shortly After). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 244]

The Pakistani military sets up a control ring around Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) in Kahuta. The ring comes about following a conversation between Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan army chief Wahid Kakar (see Late 1993). Bhutto will later say Kakar tells her, “Why don’t we set up a command and control for KRL so the scientists can’t go in and out without passing through the army ring?” At the time she thinks this is a good idea, as the labs will be cut off from the outside world and the military will be in charge of the perimeter. KRL will therefore be “airtight” and the scientists will not have the opportunity to smuggle things out, which she has heard may be a problem. However, Bhutto, who is never trusted by Pakistan’s military, will later say that this solution “ultimately played into the military’s hands and weakened my own.” One reason is the person who is put in charge of the project: General Khawaja Ziauddin. Bhutto will comment: “I didn’t know him. It was only later I found out that he was connected to the ISI and the forces pitted against me.” Ziauddin is the nephew of General Ghulam Jilani Khan, a former ISI chief who had helped make Bhutto’s rival Nawaz Sharif. In addition, he is close to army chief General Aslam Beg and powerful former ISI boss General Hamid Gul. Ziauddin will go on to become a key player in Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation activities. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 198, 498]

Husein Haqqani, an aide to Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, tells her that a planned trip to North Korea at the request of nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan to facilitate nuclear co-operation between the two countries (see December 29, 1993 and Shortly After) is a bad idea and she should not go. Haqqani will later say: “North Korea was an outlaw state, with few morals or qualms about trading in anything illicit and it was at loggerheads with the US. I told her the military and Khan were trying to trick her and that we should not be doing arms deals with [North Korea]. But she ignored me and asked me to accompany her. I cried off. I let a colleague go in my place. I let him think I was giving him a chance when I was actually watching my own back. All I kept thinking was, what happens many years down the line when this trip to North Korea is gone over? Such a thing could ruin a career. There was this bad smell about it.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 245]

Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto visits North Korea after being asked to do so by nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan to help co-operation between the two countries on nuclear weapons and delivery systems (see Shortly Before December 29, 1993 and Shortly Before December 29, 1993). Speech - At a formal dinner with North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, Bhutto says: “Nuclear non-proliferation should not be used as a pretext for preventing states from exercising fully their right to acquire and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes geared to their economic and social development.” She adds: “Pakistan is committed to nuclear non-proliferation both at the global and regional level. It is not fair to cast doubts on Pakistan’s interests and to subject Pakistan to discriminatory treatment.” Deal - Bhutto then asks Kim for blueprints for missiles that can deliver Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in a potential strike on India. Kim is surprised, but Bhutto emphasizes that “We need those missiles.” Kim agrees and proposes setting up technical teams, giving her information on computer discs to take home with her the next day. Something More? - However, Bhutto will later remark: “They gave me a bag of materials. Kim said the teams each side selected would do the deal, whatever the deal was to be. I really had little idea of what they were discussing. I did wonder, though. Was it only missiles? They said it was to be a cash deal.” Bhutto will also say that General Khawaja Ziauddin, a close associate of Khan, was in charge of the deal for the Pakistanis. Framed? - When Bhutto returns to Pakistan, she meets with one of her aides, Husein Haqqani, and shows him the bag of materials. Haqqani will later comment: “They could have been anything. It horrified me and I said so. She sensed then that the military had framed her. Her fingerprints were all over whatever their plan was for North Korea.” Bhutto gives the bag to Ziauddin, but will later say: “As far as I knew, the deal involved buying No-dong missiles for cash. But when I requested more information, the military clammed up.” After this trip, Bhutto is apparently not closely involved in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and is even unable to obtain information about its budget. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 247-249]

The Defense Science Board completes a study that observes: “Non-lethal incapacitating chemical agents could lead to greater lethality by making enemies more vulnerable to lethal weapons. So, the results of non-lethal weapons are not clear-cut in all cases.” [Asia Times, 4/1/2003]

A Chechen rebel looks at the government palace in Grozny, Chechnya, in January 1995. [Source: Mikhail Evstafiev]In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dzhokhar Dudayev won an election in Chechnya, which is a region within Russia and not a republic like Ukraine or Kazakhstan. Nonetheless, Dudayev proclaimed Chechnya independent of Russia. The next year, Chechyna adopted a constitution defining it as an independent, secular state. But Russia did not recognize Chechnya’s independence. In November 1994, Russia attempted to stage a coup in Chechnya, but this effort failed. The next month, on December 11, Russian troops invade Chechnya. This starts the first Chechen war. Up to 100,000 people are killed in the 20-month war that follows. The war will end in August 1996 (see August 1996). [BBC, 3/16/2000; BBC, 3/12/2008]

US Secretary of State Warren Christopher reaffirms the United State’s commitment to its 24-year-old pledge (see June 12, 1978) not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. He says, “The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon States Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a State toward which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon States in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.” [Washington Times, 2/22/2002; Arms Control Association, 3/2002]

Haiti’s government and lawyers for Alerte Belance, a Haitian woman who was assaulted by FRAPH forces during the coup period (see October 31, 1991), seek the FRAPH documents (see (Late October 1994)) from the US. But the US Defense Department refuses to provide them, saying the papers are classified and must first be reviewed before being released. The Haitian government wants to use the documents as evidence in the prosecution of FRAPH members and Belance’s attorneys have subpoenaed them for use as evidence in a lawsuit against FRAPH member Emmanuel Constant who is living openly in the USA, and who has admitted being a paid CIA asset during the FRAPH’s period of military rule in Haiti (see October 14, 1993). Belance’s lawyers say the documents could contain important information about FRAPH’s financing, their weapons, and the crimes they are accused of having committed. In October 1996, the US sends documents to Port-au-Prince, but the Haitian government refuses them on grounds that they are incomplete. [Inter Press Service, 10/10/1995; Amnesty International, 2/7/1996; Amnesty International, 2/7/1996]

Destruction at the Saudi National Guard training center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. [Source: CNN]Two truck bombs kill five Americans and two Indians in the US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda is blamed for the attacks. [Associated Press, 8/19/2002] The attack changes US investigators’ views of the role of bin Laden, from al-Qaeda financier to its leader. [Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 150] The Vinnell Corporation, thought by some experts to be a CIA front, owns the facility that has been attacked. [London Times, 5/14/2003]

In August 1996, fighting between Russian forces and Chechen separatists increases as Chechen rebels launch a successful attack on Grozny, which is by far the largest town in Chechnya. Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev had been killed in a Russian missile attack in April 1996, after which he was succeeded by Zemlikhan Yandarbiyev. Shortly after the attack on Grozny, Russian and Chechen leaders agree to a ceasefire. A further agreement on Russian troop withdrawals will be signed in November. In January 1997, Aslan Maskhadov wins presidential elections in Chechnya, and Russia recognizes his government. A formal peace treaty will be signed that May. However, the issue of independence for Chechnya will remain unresolved. [BBC, 3/12/2008] Islamist influence in the first Chechen war is minimal, and the number of foreign militants fighting in the war is small. Dudayev is said to be afraid of accepting money from terrorist sources out of fear this would demonize the rebel movement. But after Dudayev’s death and the end of the war, the Islamists will grow in power in Chechnya. [Washington Post, 4/26/2003]

President Bill Clinton is the first world leader to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The treaty, which will ultimately be signed by 154 nations, will extend the international ban on above-ground tests to underground testing, resulting in a total ban on all nuclear explosions. In 1999, however, the Republican-controlled Congress will vote not to ratify the treaty (see October 13, 1999). [White House, 7/20/1999; CNN, 10/13/1999]

Major Clifford E. Day at the Air Command and Staff College in Alabama concludes in a paper that the US military’s reliance on soft-skinned Humvees during the operation in Mogadishu, Somalia “needlessly put… troops in harms way without the proper equipment to successfully complete the mission.” [Day, 3/1997 ; MSNBC, 4/15/2003]

In 1998, scientists at the US Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah begin to turn wet anthrax into powder. Supposedly, this is to test how to defend against biological attacks. A spokesperson claims the anthrax produced that year is of a different strain than the Ames strain used in the 2001 anthrax attacks, but will not say if anthrax produced in other years is of the same strain or not. Dugway has had the Ames strain since 1992. In 1999, top bioweapons scientist William Patrick tells a group of US military officers that in the spring of 1998 he taught personnel at Dugway how to turn wet anthrax into powder. He says: “We made about a pound of material in little less than a day. It’s a good product.” This anthrax production will remain secret until the media discovers it in December 2001 (see December 13, 2001). Some will argue that this production of anthrax is in violation of an international biological weapons treaty that the US signed while others will argue it is not. [New York Times, 12/13/2001]

Logo of the 1st Air Force. [Source: 1st Air Force]The 1st Air Force air sovereignty team, which, as part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), is responsible for the air defense of the continental United States, scores an unprecedented “grand slam” in a four-day evaluation of its effectiveness in performing the air sovereignty mission. The three air defense sectors responsible for protecting the skies above the continental US—the Northeast, Southeast, and Western sectors—have their command and control skills tested in the Air Combat Command Operational Readiness Inspections (ORI). The 1st Air Force headquarters is concurrently tested in the NORAD Operational Evaluation (NOE). All are rated “outstanding,” the highest score possible on a five-tier scale. Only recently, on October 1, 1997, the Air National Guard had assumed command and control of the 1st Air Force and the Continental United States NORAD Region. Retired Col. Dan Navin, former 1st Air Force vice commander, says, “No transition can be truly complete until it is proven that the mission is being performed the right way. This ‘ORI’ proved exactly that, and validated the confidence the senior leaders of the Air Force had in the Air National Guard.” [Filson, 1999, pp. vi, 114-115, 184; American Defender, 3/1999] The Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) is responsible for an area of over 500,000 square miles of airspace, including that over New York City and Washington, DC. All the hijackings on 9/11 will occur within this area. [Filson, 1999, pp. 51; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17] Despite its “outstanding” rating two-and-a-half years earlier, NEADS will fail to intercept any of the four hijacked airliners.

Since Chechnya achieved de facto independence from Russia in late 1996, its stability has been slowly unraveling as an Islamist faction led by Shamil Baseyev and Ibn Khattab is undermining the Chechen government led by President Aslan Maskhadov (see 1997-Early 1999). On March 5, 1999, General Gennady Shpigun, the Russian Interior Ministry representative in Chechnya, is kidnapped by masked gunmen just as he is about to board a plane to fly to Moscow from Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The Russian government is outraged, especially since Maskhadov had guaranteed Shpigun’s safety. Sergei Stepashin, who is Russian interior minister at the time of the kidnapping, will later say that the Russian government begins planning a military assault on Chechnya shortly after. Stephashin wants Russia to conquer the flat northern half of Chechnya and then launch strikes into the mountainous southern half. However, Vladimir Putin, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s intelligence agency, advocates invading all of Chechnya. By July, Stepashin has been promoted to Russian prime minister, and he says that in a Kremlin Security Council meeting that month: “we all came to the conclusion that there was a huge hole on our border which won’t be closed if we don’t [advance] to the Terek [a river dividing the flat northern part of Chechnya from the mountainous southern part]. It was a purely military decision.” Stepashin is dismissed as prime minister in early August and replaced by Putin (see August 9, 1999). Chechen raids into the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan in August (see August 7-8, 1999) and a series of mysterious bombings in Moscow in September (see September 13, 1999, September 9, 1999, and September 22-24, 1999) provide the excuses for Russia to attack Chechnya later in September (see September 29, 1999). But Stepashin will later say: “We were planning to reach the Terek River in August or September. So this was going to happen, even if there had been no explosions in Moscow. I was working actively on tightening borders with Chechnya, preparing for an active offensive.” [Washington Post, 3/10/2000]

Following raids by Chechen forces into the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan earlier in the month (see August 7-8, 1999), the Russian military pushes the Chechens back into Chechnya. Then, on August 25, Russian planes bomb two villages just inside Chechnya, near the Dagestan border. [CNN, 8/26/1999] There is intermittent fighting and bombing for several weeks, and then, around September 22, a more intense Russian bombing campaign begins. This is to soften up the opposition so a full scale invasion can start at the end of September (see September 29, 1999). [CNN, 9/29/1999]

According to USA Today, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conduct[s] exercises simulating what the White House [later] says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the imagined targets is the World Trade Center. According to NORAD, these scenarios are regional drills, rather than regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises. They utilize “[n]umerous types of civilian and military aircraft” as mock hijacked aircraft, and test “track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination; and operational security and communications security procedures.” The main difference between these drills and the 9/11 attacks is that the planes in the drills are coming from another country, rather than from within the US. Before 9/11, NORAD reportedly conducts four major exercises at headquarters level per year. Most of them are said to include a hijack scenario (see Before September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004; CNN, 4/19/2004]

By September 29, 1999, Russian ground forces begin invading Chechnya. Chechnya has been a de facto independent country since the end of the first Chechen war in 1996, but violence has been escalating. In early August, some Chechen fighters attacked the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan (see August 7-8, 1999). In late August, the Russian military began bombing parts of Chechnya (see August 25-September 22, 1999), and by late September that turned into a heavy aerial bombardment. [CNN, 9/29/1999] By October 5, Russia claims that its forces control about one-third of Chechnya. But this is only the flat terrain north of the capital of Grozny. [CNN, 10/5/1999] The battle for Grozny will take months and securing the mountainous terrain in the southern third of Chechnya will take years.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. [Source: Government of Pakistan]Gen. Pervez Musharraf becomes leader of Pakistan in a coup, ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. One major reason for the coup is the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) felt Sharif had to go “out of fear that he might buckle to American pressure and reverse Pakistan’s policy [of supporting] the Taliban.” [New York Times, 12/8/2001] Shortly thereafter, Musharraf replaces the leader of the ISI, Brig Imtiaz, because of his close ties to the previous leader. Imtiaz is arrested and convicted of “having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.” It is later revealed that he was keeping tens of millions of dollars earned from heroin smuggling in a Deutsche Bank account. [Financial Times, 8/10/2001] Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed, a close ally of Musharraf, is instrumental in the success of the coup. Ahmed actually secured the capital and detained Sharif, but then honored the chain of command and stepped aside so Musharraf, as head of the military, could take over. Ahmed is rewarded by being made the new director of the ISI. [Guardian, 10/9/2001; Coll, 2004, pp. 504-505]

A map showing the planned flight path of Payne Stewart’s plane and the crash site location. [Source: CNN]A runaway Learjet crashes near Mina, South Dakota, after flying on autopilot for several hours. On board is champion golfer Payne Stewart, along with five others. It is believed the accident is due to a loss of cabin pressure at high altitude, which would have caused all on board to go unconscious from lack of oxygen. [ABC News, 10/25/1999; Washington Post, 10/26/1999; National Transportation Safety Board, 11/28/2000] After air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane, it was tracked by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), assisted by several Air Force and Air National Guard fighters and an AWACS radar control plane, up until when it crashed. It was also tracked on radar screens inside the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. [CNN, 10/26/1999] The Learjet had departed Orlando, Florida at 9:19 a.m., bound for Texas. The FAA says controllers lost contact with it at 9:44 a.m. [Washington Post, 10/26/1999] , but according to a later report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) the plane first failed to respond to air traffic control at 9:33 a.m., after which the controller repeatedly tried to make contact for the next 4 1/2 minutes, without success. [National Transportation Safety Board, 11/28/2000] NORAD’s Southeast Air Defense Sector was notified of the emergency at 9:55 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 459] At 10:08 a.m., two F-16 fighters from Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida that were on a routine training mission had been asked by the FAA to intercept the Learjet, but never reached it. At about 10:52 a.m., a fighter from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, was directed to within 9 miles of it, and at around 11:00 a.m. began a visual inspection of the plane. It accompanied the Learjet from 11:09 to 11:44 a.m. At 11:59 a.m., according to early accounts, four Air National Guard fighters and a refueling tanker from Tulsa, Oklahoma were told to chase the Learjet, but got no closer than 100 miles from it. However, the NTSB later claims that two Tulsa fighters were with it between 12:25 and 12:39 p.m., and were able to visually inspect it. At 12:54 p.m., two Air National Guard fighters from Fargo, North Dakota intercepted the Learjet. Soon after 1:14 p.m., it crashed in swampland, after spiraling to the ground. [Washington Post, 10/26/1999; Associated Press, 10/27/1999; National Transportation Safety Board, 11/28/2000] During its flight, the FAA had routed air traffic around the Learjet, and made sure no other planes flew beneath it, due to the danger of it crashing. [Associated Press, 10/26/1999] There is some discussion as to what could have been done had the plane been on a collision course with a populated area, with CNN reporting, “[O]nly the president has the authority to order a civilian aircraft shot down.” Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon says the military has no written instructions for shooting down manned civilian planes. According to a 1997 military instruction, the shooting down of unmanned objects such as missiles requires prior approval from the secretary of defense. [US Department of Defense, 7/31/1997 ; CNN, 10/26/1999] A Pentagon spokesman says the fighters that monitored the Learjet had no missiles, but two other fighters on “strip alert” at Fargo had been armed but didn’t take off. [CNN, 10/26/1999] The 9/11 Commission will later compare NORAD’s response to this incident with its response to Flight 11 on 9/11, and claim: “There is no significant difference in NORAD’s reaction to the two incidents.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 459]

Beginning in late 1999, the US military begins a secret program to weaponize anthrax. The program, called Biotechnology Activity Characterization by Unconventional Signatures, or Project BACUS, is run by the Defense Department. Scientists build a laboratory in a remote part of the Nevada desert where nuclear bombs used to be tested underground. The scientists in the program have skills typical of those commonly found in the pharmaceutical or pesticide industries and use equipment that can be easily bought at stores or through catalogs, in order to find out if weaponized anthrax can be created without special skills or equipment. Within weeks, they are able to produce large amounts of two germs closely related to anthrax. More batches are produced in 2000 to test for changes in the seasons. The scientists supposedly do not mill or coat the germs in order not to break an international biological weapons treaty. But in fact, some experts and journalists will later say the germs were milled. [Scripps Howard News Service, 10/30/2001]

The logo of the New Rule Sets Project, showing the WTC Twin Towers. [Source: US Naval War College]A number of “sophisticated war game workshops” are held at the World Trade Center, which apparently help prepare the American financial and national security communities for the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, 11/4/2004] The workshops are part of a unique research partnership between the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and Wall Street bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, called the “New Rule Sets Project.” The New Rule Sets Project aims to explore how globalization is altering America’s definitions of national security. Thomas Barnett, a senior strategic researcher at the Naval War College, is its director. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]Three Workshops Are Held at the WTC - The project involves three day-long workshops being held at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the WTC, where Cantor Fitzgerald has its main offices. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] Each workshop is attended by about 30 participants, including “Wall Street CEOs, subject matter experts from academia and think tanks, and national security heavyweights from the White House and from the Pentagon,” according to Barnett. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005]Workshops Examine 'the Threats That Could Derail' Globalization - The first workshop focuses on “Asian energy futures” and is held on May 1, 2000; the second workshop is focused on “foreign direct investment” and held on October 16, 2000; and the third workshop, focused on “Asian environmental solutions,” is held on June 4, 2001. [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001; Naval War College, 11/5/2001] In the workshops, according to Barnett, participants look at “what it meant to integrate developing Asia in this ever-expanding global economy and how that would impact our definitions of the future of the world.” [Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005] They discuss “globalization’s future and the threats that could derail it.” The briefings that result from the workshops are issued throughout the Pentagon. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 5, 46]Unidentified Spies Attend the Second Workshop - Three mysterious spies turn up at the second workshop. They do not participate in the event or interact with anyone, but just observe. Despite having a top secret clearance, Barnett is not allowed to know their identities. He will later suggest that the reason the spies attend is because this particular workshop is about the future of foreign direct investment in Asia, and since the Pentagon and the intelligence community have developed “a laserlike focus on China as the ‘rising near-peer competitor,’” the spies are there to give their employer “another chance to line up China’s future in their sights.” [Barnett, 2004, pp. 224-225]Project Director Regularly Visits the Pentagon - Barnett visits the WTC two or three dozen times between 1998 and 2001 due to his work with the Naval War College in collaboration with Cantor Fitzgerald. The last of these visits will take place around four days before 9/11. He also visits the Pentagon regularly due to his work with the New Rule Sets Project. He will originally be scheduled to hold a briefing a week after 9/11 at the Navy Command Center—an area of the Pentagon that is mostly destroyed when the building is attacked on September 11. And he will originally be scheduled to attend a meeting at the WTC two weeks after 9/11. [Washington Post, 1/20/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 46-47; C-SPAN, 5/30/2004]Director's Research Becomes 'Grand Strategy' after 9/11 - The New Rule Sets Project apparently serves as good preparation for the challenges of the post-9/11 world. Barnett will describe 9/11 as a “shock to the system for the US political system and the national security community” that effectively tells them, “Here’s a new way of thinking about crisis and instability and threats in the world, and we have got to have new rules for dealing with this.” [C-SPAN, 5/30/2004] He will write that after 9/11, his research with the New Rule Sets Project “immediately shifted from grand theory to grand strategy.” Within weeks of 9/11, he will be installed as the assistant for strategic futures in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s newly created Office of Force Transformation (see October 29, 2001). [Esquire, 12/2002; Barnett, 2004, pp. 5-6]Many Cantor Fitzgerald Employees Die on 9/11 - The New Rule Sets Project has evolved out of a series of “economic security exercises” run by the Naval War College and Cantor Fitzgerald, which explored the relationship between national security and economic issues (see October 1997-May 1999). [Barnett and Hayes, 5/18/2001] Cantor Fitzgerald will suffer the greatest single loss by any company on 9/11, with 658 of its employees dying in the North Tower of the WTC. [Business Week, 9/10/2006] But Barnett’s two mentors at the firm—William Flanagan, a senior managing director, and Philip Ginsberg, an executive vice president—will be out of the building at the time of the attacks for “accidental reasons” and therefore survive. [Barnett, 2004, pp. 199; Institute of International Studies, 3/8/2005; Virginian-Pilot, 9/11/2006]

Eric Newsom, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, sends a letter to Richard Wilkinson, the director for the Americas at Britain’s Foreign Office, urging the British government to prohibit former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands from returning to any of the islands in the 65-island archipelago. The former inhabitants want to resettle two islands, Salomons and Peros Banhos, which are located about 140 miles from Diego Garcia where a major US military base is located. The letter claims that allowing the islands’ former residents to resettle their homelands “would significantly degrade the strategic importance of a vital military asset unique in the region.” He explains: “If a resident population were established on the Chagos Archipelago, that could well imperil Diego Garcia’s present advantage as a base from which it is possible to conduct sensitive military operations that are important for the security of both our governments but that, for reasons of security, cannot be staged from bases near population centers…. Settlements on the outer islands would also immediately raise the alarming prospect of the introduction of surveillance, monitoring and electronic jamming devices that have the potential to disrupt, compromise or place at risk vital military operations.” He also informs Wilkinson of US plans to expand the base. “In carrying out our defense and security responsibilities in the Arabian Gulf, the Middle East, south Asia and east Africa, Diego Garcia represents for us an all but indispensable platform. For this reason, in addition to extensive naval requirements, the USG is seeking the permission of your government to develop the island as a forward operating location for expeditionary air force operations—one of only four such locations worldwide,” the letter goes on to say. [Guardian, 9/1/2000]

A confidential Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) document obtained by Wired news says the US Army is prepared to deploy combat troops in US cities in response to disruptions ranging from civil disobedience to a nuclear attack. The 75-page operations manual, created by FEMA in preparation for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, stresses the importance of preparing for “nuclear, biological, chemical, and civil disturbance events, as well as potential weather-related disaster events.” The document, according to Wired, “says that the US First Army will, if necessary, execute Operation Garden Plot to quell any serious civil disturbances.” Operation Garden Plot was first developed in the late 1960s to deal with potential protests and urban riots (see Winter 1967-1968). According to Wired, the current terrorism plans for the convention include “flying giant C-5 Galaxy cargo planes loaded with military gear into Willow Grove Naval Air Station, about 25 miles outside the city, and assembling troops at three National Guard armories near the downtown protest areas.” The FEMA document states, “The potential occurrence of an event that would reflect negatively on Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, or the United States demands that every effort to preclude such an event be taken.” FEMA has a similar plan for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. [Wired News, 8/1/2000]

The Taliban take the Northern Alliance stronghold of Taloqan after a month-long seige. The battle is unusual, because, for the first time, a large portion of the Taliban’s force—about one-third of the 15,000 force besieging Taloqan—is made up of non-Afghans loosely allied to al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda had been organizing a special unit known as the 055 Brigade, and this is one of the unit’s first battles. Furthermore, the Pakistani ISI provides more than 100 Pakistani military officials to manage artillery and communications, and the ISI generally directs the Taliban offensive. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid writes at the time about the role of foreigners and the ISI in the Taliban offensive, after interviewing Western intelligence figures, UN diplomats, and Afghans. He will later write that this battle marked “the first time people in the United States and Europe began to take notice” of these ISI and al-Qaeda roles in the Taliban offensives. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 17, 409]

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